.jpg){kind=small}
mini.jpg)
The Guardian’s Comment is Free blog just published my article, Don’t Mention the A Word, about Danny Rubinstein’s “apartheid” comment at a UN conference this week. It is a substantially expanded version of the post I published here a few days ago. It’s nice for a change for the rightists to be lambasting Rubinstein and not me (though I naturally come in for my share) in the comment thread. Actually, it’s a pretty decent debate especially compared to the usual vitriol in the Haaretz and Ynet talkback threads.
Posts Tagged ‘the-guardian’
Tikun Olam in The Guardian
Friday, September 7th, 2007Tikun Olam on Bush Mideast Arms Deal in The Guardian
Friday, August 10th, 2007
I’ve got another piece that just came out in Comment is Free at The Guardian. It has the rather unfortunate title: A Texan standoff in the Middle East. I detest how Europeans focus on Bush’s being from Texas as if he’s a hick cowboy. Also, my article doesn’t at all describe a “standoff,” but rather a dangerous escalation of the Mideast arms race that could lead to regional conflict or even nuclear conflagration. My original title was: “Bush Mideast Arms Deal, Bad for Israel.” I wanted to focus my audience on the fact that I was writing from the vantage point of analyzing whether the deal was good for Israel or bad (i.e. “is it good for the Jews or bad for the Jews”).
But when all is said and done as someone once said so memorably: “I’m just glad to be here.” Glad to get published no matter what title they use.
By the by, I’ve just learned yet another derogatory terms for an Arab in the comment thread: “towel.” Yes, I kid you not. You’ve got to see it to believe it.
Perle: Road to Neocon Hell Paved With ‘Very Best of Intentions’
Wednesday, May 30th, 2007Richard Perle ran a fool’s errand by attempting to defend U.S. foreign policy before an audience of Guardian readers in England yesterday night. Since he admits he failed miserably, he thought the second time might be the charm, so he wrote a Comment is Free blog post: We Had the Very Best Intentions. To which I reply: “The Road to Hell is Paved With…”
Does this joker really think having pure intentions should win him any points in this foreign policy debate? What about proper planning and execution? What about understanding what one’s limits should be?
British Jews Rebel Against Leadership’s ‘Rubber Stamp’ of Israeli Policy
Monday, February 5th, 2007
Independent Jewish Voice Times adSol Salbe just sent me a new Guardian article announcing the creation of the group, Independent Jewish Voices. Nearly 200 British Jews have had their fill of a leadership that seems to support Israeli policy and the Occupation unswervingly. That’s why they’re declaring their independence:
Independent Jewish Voices will…call for a freer debate about the Middle East within the Jewish community. Among the more than 130 signatories are Stephen Fry, Harold Pinter, Mike Leigh, Janet Suzman, Gillian Slovo and Nicole Farhi, as well as leading academics such as Eric Hobsbawm and Susie Orbach.
“We come together in the belief that the broad spectrum of opinion among the Jewish population of this country is not reflected by those institutions which claim authority to represent the Jewish community as a whole,” the letter says. Jewish leaders in Britain, it argues “put support for the policies of an occupying power above the human rights of an occupied people” in conflict with Jewish principles of justice and compassion.
It lists the founding principles which inform the group’s mission:
1. Human rights are universal and indivisible and should be upheld without exception. This is as applicable in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories as it is elsewhere.
2. Palestinians and Israelis alike have the right to peaceful and secure lives.
3. Peace and stability require the willingness of all parties to the conflict to comply with international law.
4. There is no justification for any form of racism, including anti-semitism, anti-Arab racism or Islamophobia, in any circumstance.
5. The battle against anti-semitism is vital and is undermined whenever opposition to Israeli government policies is automatically branded as anti-semitic.
Here is a full list of signatories.
Brian Klug, an Oxford philosophy professor, penned a masterful accompanying column which expands upon the rationale for the initiative:
…Today an oppressive and unhealthy atmosphere is leading many Jews to feel uncertain about speaking out on Israel and Zionism. People are anxious about contravening an unwritten law on what you can and cannot discuss, may or may not assert. It is a climate that raises fundamental questions: about freedom of expression, Jewish identity, representation, and the part that concerned Jews in Britain can play in assisting Israelis and Palestinians to find their way to a better future…
The Board of Deputies of British Jews (which calls itself “the voice of British Jewry”) devotes much of the time and resources of its international division to “the defence of Israel”…All of which suggests that British Jewry, speaking with one voice, stands solidly behind the Israeli government and its military operations.Two things are wrong with this suggestion. First, it’s false. Jews were deeply divided over Israel’s campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon last year. Certainly, there were those who shared the sentiment of the chief rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, who…said: “Israel, you make us proud.” Others felt roughly the opposite emotion.
…We reject any attempt to suppress legitimate public debate and we abhor the culture of vilification.The slur of “traitor” or “self-hating Jew” is especially noxious. For, if we feel compelled to protest against injustice to Palestinians, this is partly because of the lessons of our own history: the Jewish experience of marginalisation and persecution. Furthermore, when the language of human rights is spoken, many of us (secular and religious) hear the voices of those Hebrew prophets, rabbis, writers, activists and other Jewish figures down the centuries for whom Judaism means nothing if it does not mean social justice.
So, when we speak out against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, or the bombing of Lebanon, or discrimination against Palestinians within Israel itself, we are not turning against our Jewish identity; we are turning to it. Some of us, recalling that nearly 40 years have passed since Israel’s occupation began, hear a resonance. This was the length of time the Israelites wandered in the wilderness, near the end of which Moses gave them a directive: “Justice, justice shall you pursue” (Deuteronomy 16:20). It is a compass bearing for all humanity, especially when we are trying to find our way – or help others to find theirs – to a better future.
It is refreshing to know that in many Diaspora Jewish communities including here in the U.S. and Britain cracks are appearing in massive, age-old glaciers, which are slowing beginning to fall into the sea. It is our role to ensure that our communities become more open, more flexible and more pragmatic around our relationship to Israel. Our leaders, as the Independent Jewish Voices initiative asserts, have not done Israel or their respective communities a service in marching in lock step with the worst of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians and Israel’s other Arab neighbors. We look forward to a future of more broad-minded leadership here at home and one that provides hope for Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace.
Second Victim of Fatal Radiation Poisoning in Russian Spy Case
Saturday, December 2nd, 2006
The Guardian writes today that one of the men who met with former KGB spy, Alexander Litvinenko, on the day he was poisoned was himself fatally poisoned as well. The shady Italian security consultant, Mario Scaramella, ostensibly met with Litvinenko to warn him of a KGB/FSB plot to assassinate five Russian dissident figures, two of which were Litvinenko and Scaramella. After receiving a clean bill of health from medical authorities as recently as yesterday, Scaramella heard today that he too had somehow ingested a fatal dose of radiation:
The unknown assassin who killed Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy, appeared last night to have claimed a second victim after tests revealed that one of the dead man’s associates had been poisoned with the same radioactive isotope, polonium-210.
Mario Scaramella was found to have ingested a potentially fatal dose of the substance and was being treated at a London hospital last night.
The Guardian also adds these interesting background details regarding Litvinenko’s murder:
The Guardian has been told that the amount of polonium-210 found in the Russian’s body could have killed him 100 times over, and would have cost as much as £20m to acquire.
If the killers had to pay for this stuff they are very well-heeled indeed. So either the killers have very deep pockets (or access to them) or else they are directly affiliated with a government source who could provide them the radioactive material gratis.
Another Guardian story paints a picture of a Russian group of ex-security agents willing to terminate alleged enemies of the state with extreme prejudice. The organization seems to come directly from central casting for a Tom Clancy spy thriller. According to Scaramella’s theory, this group was targeting the five individuals mentioned earlier:
Valentin Velichko, ex-KGB general and head of a security service veterans’ group, Dignity and Honour, is also named in the documents as involved in the “planning of actions” against…Mr Scaramella….
Mr Velichko…in an interview with the Guardian shortly before Mr Litvinenko’s death he rubbished the idea of security service involvement with the alleged poisoning, saying the former FSB officer “probably ate some bad sushi”.
Dignity and Honour, which has up to 3,000 members, is based in an apartment block on the outskirts of Moscow. It owns more than two dozen companies that provide everything from bodyguards to banking services. It is known to have strong links with the Kremlin.
While we can’t discount this theory until we hear more information, I wonder whether it might be possible that Scaramella himself might have poisoned Litvinenko and somehow in doing so accidentally poisoned himself. If he did so, it should be easy enough to trace this by following Scaramella’s movements to determine if radioactive traces accompanied his locations and movements.
Scaramella is something of a cipher. He was a consultant to an Italian legislative commission established by Italy’s former right wing government to explore KGB links to opposition Italian political figures. But Scaramella also appears to have maintained ties with the FSB itself as well:
Italian reports have also said that he had made regular visits to the FSB in Moscow and was a close associate of Viktor Kolmogorov, deputy head of the FSB. Mr Scaramella claims that his Moscow visits were connected to his work for the Mitrokhin commission, and that far from working for the FSB he believed he was as a target.
All I can say is it gets “curiouser and curiouser.”
And returning to the Litvinenko death and a possible explanation for it, a Guardian correspondent recounts a talk the ex-spy gave at a London press club which focussed on the death of muckraking Russian journalist, Anna Politkovskaya:
…Most recently at the Frontline Club in Paddington, London, he [Litvinenko] condemned Putin for the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya. He stood in the club’s upstairs room making his points without emotion, waiting patiently for his translator to finish.
Because he may, in part, have died for these words, it is worth repeating them. ‘Anna Politkovskaya came to me and she asked me about the FSB. After her book – Putin’s Russia – was published, she received a number of threats, directly from the Kremlin. She asked me, “Can they kill me?” And I said quite frankly, “Yes, they can” and suggested she leave the country, at least for the moment. Putin passed the threat through one of her friends. She was told the threat was directly from Putin … I’m totally confident that there is only one person in Russia who could kill Anna Politkovskaya with her standing, with her fame. That is Putin.’
After reading the NY Times’ coverage of this story for several days and now tonight coming across the Guardian’s, the latter simply blows the former out of the water. That may be understandable considering the Guardian is covering a story on its own turf. But I think the Times is not grasping the enormity and profound moral alarm of these crimes while the Guardian is. Its writing is strong, full of eloquence, and cognizant of the potential international ramifications stemming from them. The Times seems to be covering the story as a curiosity and without much conviction.
David Grossman Eulogizes Son Killed in Lebanon War
Monday, August 21st, 2006Whenever you write about the Israeli-Arab conflict you know you’re going to write some very depressing posts. But today is one of those days when you realize you’re writing one of the most depressing ones that could be written.
David Grossman and son, Uri z”l (photo: John MacDougal/AFP/Getty Images)The Guardian published the text of David Grossman’s eulogy for his son, Uri, 21, who was among the last Israeli soldiers killed in the Lebanon war. If anything symbolizes the utter futility of both this war and Israel’s entire policy towards its neighbors based solely, as it is, on military force–it is this death. It sears the soul to read this.
You know that the world and Israel would’ve been far better off had Uri Grossman had a chance to leave army service and travel the world and explore the world of theater as he planned to do. He would undoubtedly have made some remarkable contribution to his country and to the arts as his father did before him. Now all that’s gone.
Of what possible use is the death of such a gifted child? There is but one silver lining. If his death can persuade a single person who was sitting on the fence that peaceful negotiations should trump war–then perhaps, just perhaps, there is some small shred of meaning we can glean from his death. Of course, I willingly deceive myself in this. Uri Grossman’s death is a vast waste of human potential. It is Israel’s tragedy writ small.
Here are David Grossman’s heartbreaking words. Read them and weep:
Uri, my love. All your short life, we have all learned from you, from the strength and determination to go your own way. To go your own way even if there is no way you could succeed. We followed with amazement your struggle to get into the tank commanders’ course. How you never compromised with your commanders, because you knew you would be a great commander. You were not satisfied to give less than you thought you could. And when you succeeded, I thought here’s a man who knows his own abilities in such a simple and wise way. Here’s a man who has no pretensions or arrogance, who isn’t influenced by what others say about him, whose source of strength is internal.
From childhood, you were like that. A child who live in harmony with himself and those around him. A child who knew his place, and knew that he was loved, who recognised his limitations and strengths. And truly, from the moment you forced the army to make you a commander, it was clear what kind of commander and person you were. We hear today from your comrades and your subordinates about the commander and friend. About the person who got up before everyone else in order to organise everything and who went to sleep only after everyone else had. And yesterday, at midnight, I looked at our house which was quite a mess after the visits of hundreds of people who came to console us and I said to myself: ‘Well, now we need Uri, to help us organise it again.’
You were the leftie of your battalion and you were respected for it, because you stood your ground, without giving up even one of your military assignments …
You were a son and a friend to me and to Mummy. Our soul is tied to yours. You felt good in yourself and you were a good person to live with…You told me so much, Uri, and I felt proud that I was your confidante.
I won’t say anything now about the war you were killed in. We, our family, have already lost in this war. The state of Israel will have its own reckoning …
Uri was such an Israeli child; even his name was very Israeli and Hebrew. He was the essence of Israeli-ness as I would want it to be. An Israeli-ness that has almost been forgotten, that is something of a curiosity. And he was a person so full of values. That word has been so eroded and has become ridiculed in recent years. In our crazy, cruel and cynical world, it’s not ‘cool’ to have values, or to be a humanist, or to be truly sensitive to the suffering of the other, even if that other is your enemy on the battlefield.
However, I learned from Uri that it is both possible and necessary to be all that. We have to guard ourselves, by defending ourselves both physically and morally. We have to guard ourselves from might and simplistic thinking, from the corruption that is in cynicism, from the pollution of the heart and the ill-treatment of humans, which are the biggest curse of those living in a disastrous region like ours. Uri simply had the courage to be himself, always and in all situations – to find his exact voice in every thing he said and did. That’s what guarded him from the pollution and corruption and the diminishing of the soul.
In closing, Grossman tells us how he received the news and how his daughter helped him realize that he, and his family, must go on. For there is living to be done by the survivors:
‘In the night between Saturday and Sunday, at 20 to three in the morning, our doorbell rang. The person said through the intercom that he was from the army, and I went down to open the door, and I thought to myself – that’s it, life’s over. But five hours later, when Michal and I went into Ruthie’s room to wake her and tell her the terrible news, Ruthie, after first crying, said: ‘But we will live, right? We will live and trek like before and I want to continue singing in a choir, and we will continue to laugh like always and I want to learn to play guitar.’ And we hugged her and told her that we will live.’
We will derive our strength from Uri; he had enough for many years to come. Vitality, warmth and love radiated from him strongly, and that will shine on us even if the star that made it has been extinguished. Our love, we had a great honour to live with you. Thank you for every moment that you were ours.
Father and Mother, Yonatan and Ruthie.
One may infer some of David Grossman’s deeper feelings about this abysmal war by reading what his other son said in his eulogy of his brother:
Grossman’s older brother Yonatan, who served in the same tank battalion as Uri, did not conceal his vehement opposition to the military operation in Lebanon.
“If they send you to die, even the best tank in the world will not help you,” Yonatan said in his eulogy.
“They sent them to die.” That’s about the bleakest and most telling characterization I’ve heard of the bankrupt policies of Ehud Olmert and Amir Peretz in this war.
The Guardian also published an excellent piece on David and Uri Grossman by Hillel Schenker.
New Hamas Platform May Offer Prospect of Referendum to Recognize Israel
Monday, March 13th, 2006Hamas released its new political platform Saturday which will serve as the basis for the work of the new PA cabinet shortly to be announced.
Hamas’ Ismail Haniye pictured Saturday in Gaza, the day he released Hamas’ political platform (photo: Khalil Hamra/AP)Different news sources are covering the story using different analyzes and emphases. But I’m most taken by Al Jazeera‘s account which notes that it may offer a clever way of finessing the issue of whether or not Hamas plans to recognize Israel:
Hamas’s draft government programme has left the question of recognising Israel to the Palestinian people – leaving the door open for a possible referendum.
…The fifth article in the programme says: “The question of recognising Israel is not the jurisdiction of one faction, nor the government, but a decision for the Palestinian people.”
Handing the issue over to a popular referendum would neatly disengage Hamas from being labelled as a hardline movement that refuses to recognise Israel on ideological grounds.
Before saying anything, we must note that the platform article doesn’t mention a Hamas plan for a referendum. The story doesn’t even say where the notion of a referendum came from (pretty sloppy journalism). Nevertheless, a referendum might be a logical outcome of this passage. If this is what Hamas’ leadership is thinking and they are serious about implementing it, then this would indicate some smart political strategizing on their part. If they truly are willing to renounce their own right to control the decision of recognizing Israel and cede that right to a democratic Palestinian referendum, that would show an ability to compromise on their formerly core principles. It shows an ability to use finesse instead of brute ideological force to resolve a thorny issue. And if true (again this must be tested by time and political reality), Hamas deserves credit for continuing its movement from obduracy toward political pragmatism.
There are two other platform articles worth noting. One calls for continuation of resistance against the Occupation (this translation, which doesn’t sound terribly felicitous and perhaps is not fully accurate–it entirely omits the passage referenced by Al Jazeera above–comes from Ynet):
3. Resistance in all its formed is a legitimate right of the Palestinian people in its path to put an end to the occupation and the reinstatement of its national rights.
While another one expands upon this more pragmatically:
9. In principle, we will be prepared to continue with the current calm, which is a path to obtain national goals, and not a goal. The calm does not mean a cancellation of the right to resist and the right to respond to Israeli violations. The calm is stipulated on the end of all Israeli aggression and the release of prisoners.
In a way, I believe that point 9 essentially subsumes point 3. In other words, Hamas is saying that while the hudna is a tactic rather than a strategy and potentially transitory, that the calm is a useful political tool right now. Should Israel resume targeting Hamas operatives, the latter reserves the right to respond. Given that neither side seems interested in doing so, things could stay calm for some time–hopefully some long time.
To be fair, not every news outlet has analyzed the platform in this way. Indeed, there is one troubling platform article:
5. The Palestinian government will address the reality created following prior agreements between the Authority and the Occupation and it is the right of the government to reassess these agreements on the basis of international law and in accordance with the rights of the Palestinians people.
This means that Hamas reserves the right to reexamine any agreements (including Oslo and the Road Map) entered into between the Fatah led PA and Israel. Such reexamination could conceivably mean that Hamas renounces some or all of them. Such potential for rejection of previous accords is a red flag for both Israel and the international community. It is also a red flag for Fatah, which has used this passage as one of its main reasons for refusing to join a Unity government.
But again, I think we have to wait and see what Hamas does in practice. If Hamas is foolhardy enough to reject specific agreements then we will know how serious it is about finding a rightful place among the ranks of democratic governments and we can act accordingly. But if, as I suspect, this point is meant to be interpreted theoretically rather than practically, and Hamas does not reject or radically revise any of these documents, then we will have an answer to the question of how pragmatic Hamas is. That means, of course that Israel, the EU, the Quartet and the U.S. should act accordingly and ease the pressure on Hamas according to the proportion of its moderation and pragmatism.
I note also that an A-Najah University public opinion poll finds that nearly 60% of Palestinians believe that Hamas should honor such previous agreements. If you think that Hamas wants to buck trends within the Palestinian polity, you’d be wrong. Hamas has proven throughout its recent successful election campaign that it has its ear to the ground and that it respects such public opinion. That’s why I doubt that Hamas would be stupid enough to attempt to strike out on its own regarding previous peace accords.
The Guardian‘s coverage, Hamas falters in effort to achieve unity chose to focus on Hamas’ inability to persuade Fatah to join a unity government and on the provision of reopening previous deals with Israel. Regarding the platform plank about recognizing Israel, the newspaper chose to spin it much less positively than Al Jazeera:
On the question of recognising Israel, Hamas was non-committal.
There is certainly room for skepticism regarding Hamas. But I find Al Jazeera’s take on this interesting and plausible.
I note that the NY Times has not even covered the story. Ugh! Some ‘newspaper of record.’
Comment is Free, Wikipedia, and Why Blogs ‘Don’t Get No Respect’
Monday, April 28th, 2008Some of you may know that the English newspaper, The Guardian, is expanding its coverage of the U.S. It’s website has a global reach and now has a significant portion of its readers here in this country. As part of this expansion, Comment is Free, the Guardian’s daily blog about politics and international affairs will be adding a U.S. section come June.
The Washington DC editor asked me if I would contribute a weekly column to CiF. This is really a dream come true for me. When you first start blogging as I did in 2003, you sometimes feel like you’re shouting down a dark hole and all you hear in reply is your own echo. It’s gratifying when the mainstream media validates the value of your work.
In addition, there is still a significant percentage of people who look down their noses at political blogs as a reliable research source of information or opinion. Usually those people are the ones who disagree with your views to begin with and their dismissiveness tends to confirm their opinions in a loop of circular reasoning. I appreciate the Guardian granting its imprimatur to my work. It goes some ways toward combating this prejudice.
A perfect example of this is Wikipedia, the world’s largest source of online research. It has a deeply confusing attitude toward blogs as sources for Wikipedia articles. Generally, they are frowned upon as unreliable since they are self-published sources, a definite no-no in the Wikipedia world. However, if you are a genuine expert in the field you write about, then blogs can be accepted as sources:
But it seems up to the blogger and Wikipedia members to sort out whether you are an expert or not. If you consider yourself an expert, and even if your blog presents original research on a topic, if another member disagrees they can remove your links at will and quote you irrelevant chapter and verse to “justify” their actions.
In my case, there are several members who have campaigned to remove references to my blog (read my Talk page) in Wikipedia articles arguing that by linking to my blog I’ve created a conflict of interest. Given that the conflict of interest rules were created mainly to prevent commercial entities from either promoting themselves or tearing down their rivals, they aren’t relevant to my situation. They also argue that despite my background in the field about which I write, since I am not a professional journalist, author, or academic, my contributions are not trustworthy and not disinterested. Considering that Wikipedia exists online and exploits all the opportunities that the web offers to disseminate knowledge, I find it ironic that it’s standards are so conventional. Either you write a book, newspaper or magazine article, or academic journal article if you wish to be an acceptable source. Write a blog and you’re chopped liver.
A senior Wikipedia editor I respect recently wrote to me about a phenomenon called “wikilawyering,” a tendency, as the online encyclopedia grows ever larger and more complicated, to parse the rules to an incredibly fine degree. In Talmudic interpretation it’s known as pilpul or in English ‘casuistry.’ He examined the work of my opponents and told me that it was such an example. I’m hoping to be working with him and other sympathetic Wikipedia members to figure out how serious political blogs can be treated with more respect within the Wikipedia universe.
And should anyone reading this edit Wikipedia articles, I’d welcome my work being referenced and linked there.
Though the pay at CiF isn’t much, at least I am getting paid. I remember a hilarious story Calvin Trillin wrote I believe in the New Yorker about a nice lunch The Nation’s editor treated him to over a discussion of his becoming a contributing writer. Trillin relates jocularly that the fee for his pieces was to be “in the low three figures.” But three figures is better than no figures.
My English friend, Michael Furmanovsky wrote to me saying: “You should be proud to be contributing to the best newspaper in the world.” As a dyed in the wool NY Times reader I find it difficult to transfer that title to The Guardian. But the truth is that the Times has nowhere near the diversity of political opinion in its pages that The Guardian does. This is proven by the fact that it is The Guardian and not the Times which has developed Comment is Free, a terrific means of integrating the best of the blog world into mainstream media.
The Guardian truly lets a thousand flowers bloom. The Times seems to specialize in a limited and carefully selected number of hot-house flowers. It’s a different journalistic philosophy and while I value both–as a writer I’m especially grateful for The Guardian’s approach.
I want to continue encouraging readers to provide story ideas to me along with links and any other background information that is necessary to write it.
Tags: blogs, comment-is-free, the-guardian
Posted in Blogs-Tech-Science, Mideast Peace | 4 Comments »